Baling press plunger and separate knife



1954 c. s. MORRISON BALING PRESS PLUNGER AND SEPARATE KNIFE Filed June 21, 1950 IN V EN TOR.

ler w Patented Aug. 31 1954 BALING PRESS PLUNGER AND SEPARATE KNIFE Charles S. Morrison, Mo

Illinois Application June 21, 1950, Serial No.

line, 111., assignor to Deere & Company, Moline,

1]., a corporation of 1 Claim. (01. 100-98) This invention relates to a baiing press and more particularly to an auxiliary device such as a material-slicing knife releasably connected to the plunger of such press.

Although, as

will be seen from to follow, th

said edge portion and a. cooperative knife carried by the plunger. The result is that, a bale such movement of the needles would be impossible because of interference with the knife.

According to sirable results are plunger and driven by the present invention,

made possible by the provision of'a knife that is carried these deseparately from the means that gives the knife a shorter stroke of reciprocation than the reciprocation plunger moves on its beyond the edge the cutting edge stroke of the plunger,

whereby as the compression stroke well of the feed opening along which lies, the stroke of the separate knife will be such that it reaches tion substantially upon its final posiocclusion with the cutting edge in a shearing zone considerably short of the zone or moves. Thus,

end pos ition to which the plunger the shearing or cutting edge of the knife may be made continuous and the knife wil1 lose none of its efficiency.

be slotted as Yet, the slots may be provided in planes normal or perpendicular operates. with respect to its operation in th plunger may the tying needles.

in which the knife connection with the operation just characteristics of At the same time, usual to receive to the plane In short, the plunger needles during the tying knife thereon. Yet, has all the functional knives heretofore used for slicing material to provide separate charges.

Another important to provide for the by means object of the mvention is driving of the plunger and knife deriving power from a common shaft.

In particular, this shaft will be a crankshaft having a crank to the lunger. ably cam driven, the related to throw that is connected by a pitman In addition, the knife is prefercam being designed and the crank throw so that the plunger and knife start together from a beginning position in which the feed opening is uncovered to different final positions short of the zone into Still more particularly, the relationship thereof to the crank such that the in which the knife stops which the plunger moves. the design of the cam and throw is knife precedes the leading edge of the plunger and attains its shearing position before the plunger reaches a position alongside the cutting edge at the further designed so feed opening. that the knife will be held The cam is substantially stationary after attaining its shearing status, while the plunger continues onward and subsequently returns on its retracting stroke,

whereupon the kn e and plunger again move in the directionin which the feed opening is uncovered.

The foregoing and other important objects and desirable features inherent in and encompassed by the invention will become apparent as a preferredembodiment of closed in the Figure 1 is a the invention is fully disfollowing detailed description and accompanying sheet of drawings in which:

plan view of a representative baler of the mobile pick-up type, a portion of the bale case being broken away its relationship to the Figure 2 is retracted positions;

to expose the plunger and feed opening;

an enlarged fragmentary sectional view taken substantially 1, showing both the plunger and the on the line 22 of Figure knife in their Figure 3 is a view similar to Figure 2 but showing the plunger and knife in ,tions; and

Figure 4 substantially on knife operating 'mecha The pick-up illustration comprises baler chosen for essentially their extended posiis a transverse sectional view taken the line 4-4 of Figure 2, the

nism not being in section. the purposes of a main frame Ill carried by wheels l2 and i l for travel in the direction of the arrow A over a field from which windrowed hay or straw is picked up by pick-up mechanism Hi to be fed rearwardly through a feed opening 18 and into a bale chamber 20 provided within an elongated bale case of rectangular sec-- tion made up by a plurality of walls, including front and rear walls 22 and 24 and top and bottom walls 26 and 28. In the present instance, the feed opening the front wall 22 and is defined at its opposite sides by vertical edges 30 and 32 spaced apart lengthwise of the bale chamber 20.

A plunger 34 is carried for reciprocation lengthwise of the bale chamber 20 in alternate compression and retracting strokes, the plunger having a leading face 36 in front of which material is fed through the opening is to be compressed or compacted by the plunger on successive compression strokes. Figures 1 and 2 show the plunger in its retracted or starting osition, the leading face 36 being substantially at or along the edge 30 of the feed opening l8. Hence, the feed opening I8 is uncovered. Figure 3 shows the final position of the plunger, it being noted that the leading face 36 moves to an end position well beyond the other edge 32 of the feed opening 18. Thus, the leading face of the plunger 34 travels through a fixed distance P (Figure 2). The means for reciprocating the plunger preferably comprises a crankshaft 38 journaled at one end of the bale chamber and having a single crank throw in that is pitman-connected at 42 to the plunger 34.

Material compacted by successive compression plunger 34 is ultimately formed into bales and the bales are discharged at the open end of the chamber 20 opposite to the end at which the crankshaft 3B is carried. As the bales attain a predetermined length, they are tied by wire or twine. 'In the present representative disclosure, a wire-tying mechanism has been illustrated. This will be described briefly below.

The baler illustrated here differs primarily from balers heretofore known in that the tying mechanism has been rearranged on the basis of possibilities incident to certain aspects of the invention as will appear below.

Fundamentally, these changes involve rearrangement of the Since the tying mechanism itself may be of any conventional or otherwise suitable design, only general disclosure is made here of the representative form adopted for present purposes. The details may be similar to the tying mechanisms shown in U. 3. Patent 2,458,318 granted to M. H. Tuft, January 4, 1949, and U. S. Patent No. 2,456,476.

The front wall 22 of the bale chamber 20 is provided with a pair of vertically spaced slots 46 and 43. The rear wall 24 is provided with a similar pair of slots, only the upper one of which is visible at 5B in Figure 1. The tying mechanism includes a gear housing 52 carried outside the front wall 22 and in communication with the slots 46 and 48. This housing contains suitable tying mechanism for cooperation with a pair of needles which move transversely of the bale case through the slots in the front and rear walls. Only one-needle is shown in the drawings, but the presence of two will be apparent. The needle shown is designated by the numeral 54 and is mounted for swinging movement on an arm 56 pivoted at 58 to the rear wall 24 of the bale case. A connecting link 60' is connected to the arm 56 and to a crank arm 62 which is driven by suitable chain and sprocket mechanism 64 which in turn derives power from any suitable source.

position of the needle 54 is in Figure 1.. i

The idle orretracted that shown (not shown) within the tying mechanism housing 52, after which the'needle is of the plunger 34. Since there are times when the needle 54 and plunger 34 will occupy the same means of a separate knife.

The movable knife is designated generally by the numeral 12. This knife has a leading edge 14 and a trailing edge 1 The leading edge 14 is or cutting element.

The knife 12 is front wall 22 plunger 34 and of the feed opening 18. In 14 and 32 occlude.

parallel,

stroke than does the knife.

For the purposes limited stroke mentioned, driving means is procommodate this mechanism.

A roller 90 mounted on the lever 80 intermediate its ends follows a cam to the crankshaft 38- to'rotate occlusion of the cutting. zone and for returning the knife to its 10 starting position.

' References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date Luzzato May 8, 1900 Thomas Jan. 30, 1906 Cass Dec. 10, 1912 Hilton June 26, 1917 Tallman et a1 Oct. 26, 1937 Preston Oct. 10, 1939 Russell Aug. 17, 1943 

